The Givenness of Things: Essays

by Marilynne Robinson Narrated by Coleen Marlo

Overview

A Finalist for the 2016 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
One of TIME magazine's Best Nonfiction Books of the Year

The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope. In The Givenness of Things, the incomparable Marilynne Robinson delivers an impassioned critique of our contemporary society while arguing that reverence must be given to who we are and what we are: creatures of singular interest and value, despite our errors and depredations.

Robinson has plumbed the depths of the human spirit in her novels, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Lila and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead, and in her new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern predicament and the mysteries of faith. These seventeen essays examine the ideas that have inspired and provoked one of our finest writers throughout her life. Whether she is investigating how the work of the great thinkers of the past, Calvin, Locke, Bonhoeffer-and Shakespeare-can infuse our lives, or calling attention to the rise of the self-declared elite in American religious and political life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on display. Exquisite and bold, The Givenness of Things is a necessary call for us to find wisdom and guidance in our cultural heritage, and to offer grace to one another.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 08/10/2015
This probing, provocative collection by Pulitzer winner Robinson (Gilead) argues for the recovery of humanism as a response to the problems of our historical moment. Robinson's is a "humanism articulated in the terms of Christian metaphysics," based on a deep reading of the Bible and her self-declared Calvinism. She is as impressively erudite and incisive in dealing with Shakespeare's "theological seriousness" and the literariness of the Reformation as in examining the current American allegiance to science over wonder, competitiveness over generosity, technology over art. The essays demonstrate an engaging humility, a quiet voice pure of accusation or bombast, and insight touched with humor. Robinson's surgically precise prose and disciplined thought convey regret for human fallibility just as strongly as reverence for human potential. Her solution is a moral reparation—a reinvigoration of "the conceptual vocabulary of religion" and "a more considered understanding of the soul" that acknowledges "the ontological centrality of humankind in the created order." "To value one another is our greatest safety," Robinson writes, "and to indulge in fear and contempt is our gravest error." Eloquent, persuasive, and rigorously clear, this collection reveals one of America's finest minds working at peak form, capturing essential ideas with all "the authority beautiful language and beautiful thought can give them." Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group. (Oct.)

From the Publisher

One of Time's Top 10 Nonfiction Books of 2015

"A sense of wonder pervades the powerful essays in The Givenness of Things . . . Robinson's heroic lamentation is magnificent . . . Robinson's insistence, throughout these essays, that we recognize the limitations of our knowledge is timely and important." —Karen Armstrong, The New York Times Book Review

“These are beautiful essays . . . beautiful in thought and beautiful in expression.” —Bill Marvel, Dallas Morning News

“The Givenness of Things is so rich that I'm tempted to quote it to death.” —Michael Robbins, The Chicago Tribune

“Over the course of 17 provocative essays, Robinson, a ‘self-declared Calvinist from northern Idaho,’ brings both her formidable intellect and powers of plain speaking to deliver a clarion call against the culture of fear that she believes is eating away at American society.” —Yvonne Zipp, The Christian Science Monitor

“Marilynne Robinson displays the same passionate concern with matters of faith that suffuses her majestic trilogy of linked novels.” —Wendy Smith, The Boston Globe

"Robinson’s handiwork is capacious and serious, but also mysterious and wondrous; like the night sky, it deserves our attention." —Casey N. Cep, The New Republic

"A new book of essays by Robinson is a major American literary event." —Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News

“Robinson's genius is for making indistinguishable the highest ends of faith and fiction . . . The beauty of Robinson's prose suggests an author continually threading with spun platinum the world's finest needle.” —Michelle Orange, Bookforum

“These bravely and brilliantly argued, gorgeously composed, slyly witty, profoundly caring essays lead us into the richest dimensions of consciousness and conscience, theology and mystery, responsibility and reverence.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist

“The prose is as finely wrought as in any of Robinson’s novels . . . any reader not tone-deaf will be enchanted by her grave, urgent music.” —George Scialabba, Bookforum

"Eloquent, persuasive, and rigorously clear, this collection reveals one of America's finest minds working at peak form, capturing essential ideas with all 'the authority beautiful language and beautiful thought can give them." —Publishers Weekly

Kirkus Reviews

2015-07-15
A sober, passionate defense of Christian faith. In these 17 essays, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Robinson (Iowa Writers' Workshop; Lila, 2014, etc.) returns to themes she considered most recently in her memoir, When I Was a Child I Read Books (2012): ethics, morality, reverence, and her own convictions as a Christian. "My Christology is high," she writes, "in that I take Christ to be with God, and to be God. And I take it to be true that without him nothing was made that was made." Much scientific thinking, she believes, draws conclusions from only a "radically partial model of reality" that excludes the marvelous and the improbable. She criticizes, for example, "the reductionist tendencies among neuroscientists" to propose a material model for the human mind; instead, she finds the soul "a valuable concept, a statement of the dignity of a human life and of the unutterable gravity of human action and experience." Robinson is an astute critic of self-righteousness among some who identify as Christians: "a harshness, a bitterness, a crudeness, and a high-handedness" has entered political life, she maintains, causing some in the "religious monoculture" to be self-serving, self-congratulatory, and insular. This kind of American Christian identity, she sees, is "rooted in an instinctive tribalism" that incites resentment, rage, and bigotry. Contemporary America, she writes, "is full of fear," but fear "is not a Christian habit of mind." This fear "operates as an appetite or an addiction. You can never be safe enough." Fear also leads to rash actions, such as increased gun sales, which are often justified by misreadings of the Second Amendment. As she notes, "gun sales stimulate gun sales—a splendid business model." Besides offering close readings of biblical texts, Robinson also considers the works of Calvin, Shakespeare, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and William James. Deeply thoughtful essays on troubling and divisive cultural—and spiritual—issues.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169728958
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	10/27/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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